April 2017 work summary

This turned into being a pretty busy month here at phpBB Services. There’s no accounting for when work comes in the inbox, but the work is consistently upgrading forums for the most part. Also this month I released a new version of my digests extension and continued teaching a Javascript class at a local community college. Anyhow, here’s some of the paid work I did in April. As usual all client information has been anonymized.

• I upgraded forum from phpBB 3.0.12 to 3.2.0 using default prosilver style. The web host first had to move everything to a new server that supported the newer version of PHP needed. PHP 7 had to be used as 5.6 was not an option on the new server. One ripple from this was that I had to change the forum’s config.php to change the database interface mechanism from mysql to mysqli for the installer update to work. This client also had my digests mod installed so I had to migrate it to the digests extension.
• I changed some links on the navigation bar on an Absolution style on a phpBB 3.0.12 forum.
• A client made mistakes upgrading his forum from phpBB 3.0.11 to 3.2.0. Some tables were missing from the database. The client eventually found a database backup file dated 4/2 that looked complete. Since the forum was large I had to do the work on my local machine. I loaded the database into my local database. The first upgrade I attempted was to phpBB 3.1.10. Then I did a second upgrade to phpBB 3.2.0. Since it could be done successfully, I moved everything back to the web server, loading the database with bigdump.php to avoid hitting potential resource limitations. There was a peculiar issue with cache directory (it could not be written to by programs), so I renamed it and created a new cache folder. Upon further inspection, we discovered the database was 5 years old, but the client finally found a complete and reasonably up to date extract of the database, so I converted and loaded that.
• I was asked to rehost a forum. It turned out to be quite simple since the client provided an extract of the database, so I just had to move the files, load the database and change the config.php file. phpBB 3.2.0 was installed. When going into the ACP, it strangely redirected to website’s (not the forum’s) home page. The solution was to disable modSecurity.
• A client has a MediaTemple virtual server. I kept getting noticed that various operating system packages needed updating. With the client’s permission, I updated 219 packages.
• Continued work from the previous month with a user who had a custom content management system that previous developers had integrated into phpBB 3.0.7-PL1 forum. A particular user could not stay active. The content management system kept making him inactive. The only program I could find that would make him inactive was an integration with in their CMS. But it should never get triggered as his membership expiration date is in 2019. I checked all ban lists that would auto ban him but there was no apparent issues there. Customer wanted an estimate on how much it would cost to upgrade the forum, retrofitting his CMS for the latest version of phpBB. Spent 3 more on an analysis of the various options, none of which were cheap or easy.
• I upgraded a forum from phpBB 3.0.11 to 3.2.0. I installed a proprietary Eles style from ThemeForest. The client has Hostgator hosting, so he had to have PHP upgraded first. After the upgrade, I had to delete a ton of old modules manually for mods that no longer existed. I installed new Statcounter code using an Eles widget and attached it to the footer. I provided guidance on updating domain information with the domain registrar and using HTTPS with the form. There may be additional work in few weeks. Some days later, a problem developed. Files with the mask autoload_* in /cache/production folder were getting removed causing sporadic errors. Hostgator fixed it, but not did not detail how they fixed it. I suspect modSecurity was doing this. At client’s request, I tested registration as a new user. The registration email went to my GMail spam folder. Suggested creating a board “from” email address under the forum’s domain. This worked and the registration email no longer went to a spam folder. Later the client purchased and integrated a security certificate, I added redirect code to the .htaccess file to force http traffic to use https. Later, client found he could not integrate the external image he wanted as a header background on the Eles style. I was able to grab the image, stored it in the images folder, and reference it correctly in the Eles style.
• Troubleshooting. phpBB 3.1.6 wasn’t coming up. Looking at Bluehost logs suggested the issue was due to modSecurity being enabled. Adding a check to disable it in the .htaccess file but it didn’t solve that problem. I asked client to talk to Bluehost. I did download the software to check it with a 3.1.6 reference. There were no issues that suggested hacking. The next day client said now there were HTTP 500 errors. I investigated and found that the folder for the forum was missing most of the files! I uploaded what I had (it’s a good thing I keep backups before starting work!) from my backup as well as some missing folders like cache and store. The files folder looked intact, but images were missing, so there may be missing avatars. I changed folder and file permissions to standard. However, there were still HTTP 500 errors. Investigation showed PHP could not interpret namespaces, so PHP 5.2 was being used. Changing PHP in Bluehost did not affect the forum. So I edited the .htaccess file to force PHP 5.4 to be used and the forum came up. There were still issues of at least one image not appearing and messages saying I didn’t have permission to see certain images. Client’s phpBB account is missing these permissions, perhaps by design. Client needs to look it over and report back.
• I installed my digests extension for an existing client on a forum he has on another domain. But I couldn’t delete Viglink from ACP screen. I tried uploading phpBB source files again but it made no difference. Suspected it was due to modSecurity. Eventually Dreamhost replied with instructions on how to deactivate it, so I deactivated it. That solved that problem. A new problem emerged: although the modules for adding extensions were installed, I could not see them in ACP > Customise! Sought help on phpbb.com. A row was missing from phpbb_acl_options table. Once added, I was able to install my digests extension.
• A client could not login to his forum. Somehow phpBB 2 files were in his forum folder although the database said phpBB 3.1.9 was installed. Uploaded those software needed to run phpBB 3.1.9, pointed config.php to the correct database and it came up again. There may be files missing in files folder as nothing is there, but avatars are in images/avatars weren’t lost.
• I converted a forum from phpBB 2.0.15 to 3.2.0. Initially there were issues because the web host control panel did not have a file manager. It was added by client. Mandarin Traditional Chinese language pack was installed. During the upgrade two issues of duplicate usernames were fixed. There was another issue that was due to some inconsistency between private messages and posts. I commented out the error message to get the upgrade to finish. I recreated the search index. I moved the old forum into old_forum directory. It is disabled and the server path was changed. Tens of thousands of images copied fine during the conversion. There was a Smartor gallery mod for phpBB 2.0 that was not migrated. This will be taken on as a separate project when a version of the phpBB Gallery extension for phpBB 3.2 is approved.
• Going back to a client I helped back in February, there was a lingering issue with a login link not working due to weird hosting configuration the host would not change. The login box on the index worked, so I moved the login box to the top of the index page for visibility, and hid the login link that didn’t work. This is another reason to avoid web.com as a host.
• Client had issues with session hijacking. I changed security settings to enable IP session comparison. In addition, Tapatalk seemed to be causing duplicate posts. Client deleted the Tapatalk extension files but did not delete the extension properly via the ACP. I deleted the remaining files then deleted obvious items for Tapatalk in the database in config, migrations and ext tables. I suggested disabling/removing extensions if problems recur. Not sure why but Bitninja was blocking certain IP addresses. False positives?
• Troubleshooting. Newly registered users were going through moderation even though they were allowed to post immediately upon successful registration. Fixed by changing the newly registered user posting role to allow posting without approval. Approved 5 posts in the moderation queue and deleted 1 spam post reported in the moderation queue. Provided estimate for upgrade to 3.2.0. Later, some forum permissions did not allow registered users and newly registered users to post. I changed both groups to use standard access. I also upgraded the forum from phpBB 3.1.9 to 3.2.0, reapplying the logo and the Facebook button in the navigation bar. I also upgraded Tapatalk extension.
• Error message accessing the ACP. Forum was running phpBB 3.0.4 and PHP 5.6. The issue was the newer version of PHP 5.6 was enabled without telling the client. Fixed issue by adding a line to config.php to turn off QA_HTML_COMPRESSION. The larger issue was the forum software was old so I upgraded the forum to phpBB 3.2.0. Used default prosilver style with upgrade, added the logo, and enabled the question on registration spam countermeasure.
• I upgraded a forum from phpBB 3.0.11 to 3.2.0. First, I upgraded PHP from 5.2 to 5.6. After the upgrade, I manually removed modules for the phpBB Gallery and Advanced BBCode mods. Installed the green style and integrated old logo. Spoiler BBCode would not work properly until I installed the latest Advanced BBCode extension. I reenabled question on registration. I added back to navigation bar some external links, 5 total, that still work. Created old_files folder for files and directories that look like they aren’t used and can be deleted but client decided he didn’t need them. Issues with icons not appearing on the post window. Reuploading some style files solved the problem. Later, issue on registration that was caused by a column not having a default value. The table column was used by a phpBB mod no longer used. I deleted a lot of obsolete columns from the client’s table and removed a lot of unneeded tables used by old mods as well.